Artificial fuel and process of making same.



No. 778,781. I

UNITED STATES Patented December 27, 1.904.

PATENT OEEIcE.

ARTIFICIAL FUEL AND PROCESS OF MAKING SAME.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 778,781, dated December 27, 1904.

Application filed March 24, 1904. Serial No. 199,800.

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, GEORGE IV. HERBEIN, a citizen of the United States, residing in the city and county of San Francisco, State of California, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Artificial Fuel and Processes of Making the Same; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

My invention relates to the manufacture of artificial fuel of that class in which petroleum is used as the combustible base or essential ingredient.

My invention consists both in the novel process and in the product of said process, which I shall hereinafter describe.

The object of my invention is to provide an efficient fuel of this class by an economical process.

In carrying out my process I take, first, petroleum, either in its crude form, or its distillate, or its waste, (all of which forms I shall hereinafter designate by the term petroleum,) and mix it with a resin or resinous gum, preferably pine-resin, and by the application of heat dissolve the resin in the petroleum. To this solution, either when cool or while still hot, I add an alkali, such as soda or potash, and heat the solution again, if previously cool, or continue the heat, stirring the mass until partial saponification takes place, whereupon the stirring is discontinued. If desired, for the sake of further economy this operation of heating, leading to partial saponification, may be conducted under a hood, to catch the distillate which comes from the petroleum. In the meantime, or previously or subsequently, I take peat and by the addition of an alkalisuch as potash, soda, or limerender it alkaline. This alkaline peat is dried thoroughly and may, if desired, for the best results be charred sufficiently to make it what may be termed alkaline-peat charcoal. This alkaline peat, either in its dried form or its charred form, is now mixed thoroughly with the partially-saponified petroleum mass. If enough alkali, such as lime, has been added to the peat in the first place, it may serve to render the mixture of peat and petroleum sufiiciently dry; but if not I add to the mixture, as a final step,

lime, either oxid or hydrated, to further dry it. The mass now has a consistency of a pill mass and may be formed or pressed into any suitable commercial shape.

The proportions of the various ingredients may vary considerably. Neither the process nor its product is dependent upon proportions, and in giving the following example I am not to be understood as confining myself to the proportions stated, as my object is merely to set forth, by way of illustration, an example which if followed will carry out the process and produce a desirable fuel in accordance with my invention.

Satisfactory proportions for the ingredients of the partialIy-saponified petroleum mass are petroleum, eighty per cent; resin, ten per cent, and alkali ten percent. In rendering the peat alkaline three per cent. of the alkali may be advantageously used. Good proportions for the mixture of the partially-saponified petroleum mass and the alkaline peat are fifty per cent. of the former, fortyfive per cent. of the latter, and five per cent. of the final lime for drying.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. The process of making artificial fuel which consists in mixing with petroleum a fatty acid and an alkali, partially saponifying said mixture, and adding to said partiallysaponified mixture alkaline peat in the form of charcoal.

2. The process of making artificial fuel which consists, first, in dissolving resin in petroleum, adding an alkali and heating the mass to a partial saponification, second, rendering peat alkaline by the addition of an alkali, and third, mixing the partially-saponified petroleum mass with the alkaline peat.

3. The process of making artificial fuel which consists, first, in dissolving resin in petroleum, adding an alkali and heating the mass to partial saponification, second, rendering peat alkaline by the addition of an alkali, third, mixing the partialIy-saponified petroleum mass with the alkaline peat, and, fourth, adding a drier.

4:. The process of making artificial fuel alkali, and charring said alkaline peat to a charcoal, third, mixing the partially-saponified petroleum mass with the alkaline-peat charcoal and, fourth, adding a drier.

6. An artificial fuel consisting of an alkaline-peat charcoal and a partially-saponified mixture of petroleum, resin and an alkali.

ln Witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand.

GEORGE W. HERBEIN. Witnesses:

\VALTER F. VANE, D. B. RICHARDS. 

